Susan Johnson - Temporary Mistress

"The Prince of Wales, Mama!" Amelia wailed. "How vexatious and provoking! The little bitch knows the Prince of Wales!"

"Mind your tongue, my dear. I doesn't suit a young lady of fashion."

"As if we even are, Mama," Amelia crossly replied. "The only parties we're invited to are ones given by mushrooms or arrivistes. There hasn't been one viscount or baron or even a knight at any of them. And that little bitch" she furiously added, looking daggers at her mother as if daring she reprove her, "is not only invited to a party given by the Prince of Wales's mistress but is the belle of the ball! Papa must do something about it, Mama! He must!" She reached for a piece of plum cake, her fourth.

"You know very well, your papa has been warned off by the Earl of Bathurst. Would you wish him killed in a duel?"

Both daughters stared at their mother without speaking, their selfishness curtailing an immediate reply. And then Caroline begrudgingly said, "I suppose not."

"Why does Bathurst have a say in our lives anyway?" Amelia petulantly inquired. "Can't Papa just tell him to mind his own business?"

"Would he really, actually, shoot Papa?" Caroline queried, a hopeful note in her voice.

"I don't think your papa cares to find out whether he will or not," Abigail snapped.

"We're never going to get husbands," Amelia cried. "And next season we'll be old goods. It's not fair, Mama!"

"What if stupid Isabella fell down the stairs? That would end her season." Caroline had pushed her governess down the stairs years before and the lady had directly left the household in fear for her life.

"I won't have you even thinking of such a thing," her mother warned. "You would never receive another invitation should you be so unwise." It had taken a considerable sum to still the governess's gossiping tongue those years earlier, and Abigail didn't wish to have any old stories revived should Isabella meet with an accident on the stairs.

"She'd be out of our way though," Amelia murmured, directing a sly smile at her sister. "And we could go to more parties."

"That's enough!" Abigail chided. "I forbid you to talk of such things as pushing anyone down the stairs."

"We could poison her," Caroline suggested, her mother's warnings always lacking penalties. "That's what happened to the heroine in Lady Blair."

"If you recall, the hero saved her," her sister pointed out. "And stupid Isabella has any number of suitors, according to the gossip column, so she would be saved anyway."

"I can't imagine where you girls get such preposterous notions. No one will be poisoning anyone. Do you understand?" Abigail cast them a pointed look.

"And we'll just mold away at all the rubbishy parties while Isabella dances with the Prince and probably marries a duke." On which sour note Caroline stuffed an entire muffin into her mouth.

"And we'll be forced to live with Mama and Papa for the rest of our lives," Amelia said with a dramatic sigh cut short by a forkful of glazed ham.

After breakfast, impelled by motherly impulse and the ridicule of her friends if she couldn't marry off her daughters with ten thousand apiece, Abigail sought out her husband in his study. "I don't suppose you saw the society columns this morning," she curtly pronounced as she entered the room, displeasure in every syllable of her statement.

Herbert looked up from his desk. "Now, why would I look at the society columns?"

"To see if your daughters might be in them?"

"Not likely that." He was realistic about his daughters' prospects, understanding they would find themselves husbands only because of the generous dowries he provided.

"Well," Abigail pithily said, plunking herself down in a chair near the desk, her brows drawn together in a black scowl, "if you had, you would have seen that Miss Isabella Leslie has flown very high indeed."

His wife had his attention. "Meaning?"

"None other than Lady Hertford sponsored Isabella at a ball last evening. Which really means the Prince of Wales is her sponsor, as you well know. Our daughters are beside themselves with grief and rage."

"Don't look at me like that. I could no more get them an invitation to Lady Hertford's than I could jump over the moon." Isabella had indeed landed on her feet, he thought, Bathurst's interest in her suddenly personalized, the tidbits of gossip apparently true. His close relationship with the Prince of Wales was well known.

"You will do something, Herbert," Abigail's thin shoulders were rigid with anger. "Need I remind you what the influence of my father's firm meant when you were first gaining clients?"

"No, you need not remind me," he grumbled, "since I've heard it anytime you were vexed these last twenty years. But you didn't see Bathurst when he threatened me. He was serious."

"Surely a man of his ilk rarely appears at the deb balls. The girls wish to meet the aristocracy, not the sons of City merchants."

"Unfortunately, we don't know when he may appear, and I have no intention of meeting him on the dueling field."

"I understand, Herbert." She offered him a thin smile. "But surely there's some way around it. A means of offering the girls entree into some of the fashionable balls. Bathurst's defense of Isabella certainly can't be of much moment. He's known for the fickleness of his interests."

"Let's hope you're right. I don't relish his anger. Nor do any of our male relatives."

"You must find out when and where he will be and simply avoid those entertainments. There will be plenty enough parties left over. With the girls' dowries we can reach high, Herbert, and don't tell me you wouldn't wish a quartering or two added to our family name."

"You ask a good deal, Abigail."

"But not the impossible when every night sees a dozen balls."

"Very well. I'll see what I can do."

"That's all I want."

By one of those fortuitous freaks of fortune that occur from time to time, Herbert Leslie found himself meeting with the Marquis of Lonsdale the following day. It seemed the marquis had lost rather heavily at White's the night before, and he needed funds to pay his gambling debts. Since Herbert already held a number of the marquis's notes, he was just about to ask a favor of him in regard to invitations for his daughters, when Lonsdale asked, "Is the beautiful Miss Isabella Leslie any relation to you? She's quite charmed the ton."

It was a moment of pure opportunity.

Invitations be damned.

Since George Leslie's death, the Leslie males had been trying to find a way to separate Isabella from her fortune, and now Lonsdale had suddenly appeared in his office as though by the hand of God. Not that Herbert had a Christian bone in his body, but he recognized a miracle when he saw one.

"As a matter of fact, she is. She's my niece."

"And very wealthy, I hear." After dissipating his inheritance in five short years, the marquis was on the lookout for a profitable marriage. "She's agreed to go driving with me next week."

"Has she now?"

At Herbert's tone, the marquis looked at his banker with a speculative gaze. "She has," he softly said.

"How much do you owe me?" Herbert asked.

One of the marquis's brows rose in contemptuous regard. "How should I know. Do I look like a grubby clerk?"

"Fifty thousand."

The marquis smiled. "And you want something from me for this new loan?"

"How would you like to marry my niece?"

"I and a hundred other bucks. Do you have a suggestion on how I might accomplish that feat?"

"Possibly. But if I do, I want my fifty thousand and the running of her businesses."

"Where you'd steal me blind." It was a time when women had few rights to their fortunes after marriage. The marquis's interest in Isabella's wealth was as keen as his interest in her.

"There's more than enough for everyone," Herbert calmly said. "And need I remind you, you're near bankrupt. So a percentage of Isabella's fortune is more than you have or could possibly contemplate. You're not a great catch, Lonsdale, with your estates in ruin."

The marquis scowled at him for a moment and then said, "What do you want me to do?"

"Take her driving as planned."

"And?"

"Drive her to your little hideaway in Chelsea, where you can see that she's thoroughly compromised. We will see that there are witnesses and a minister waiting." This time Herbert planned on taking no chances. He'd see that Isabella was married to the marquis. Bathurst would be less likely to threaten one of his own kind. And should he, Lonsdale's skill with a pistol was formidable.

"Tempting." The marquis leaned back in his chair and contemplated some distant view outside the windows.

"You'd be very rich."

Lonsdale refocused his gaze on Herbert. "I could take her away to the Continent." He smiled. "For a honeymoon."

"Until the scandal dies down."

"Until I see that she's with child. Insurance, as it were."

"Very wise."

The marquis abruptly came to his feet. "I'm going to need contracts for my lawyers to review. Soon. I take her driving Monday."

"I'll have them delivered to your home."

"Send them to Jackson Hewlett. I'll stop by to see him now and give him a brief overview."

"Only of our terms."

"Of course."

"The matter of Isabella will remain private."

"Naturally."

"I'll see that your debts at White's are taken care of."

Lonsdale dipped his head. "And I'll see that Miss Leslie enjoys her drive."

DERMOTT HAD GONE into hermitage with Helene Kristos, a young mother who lived with her son in Chelsea. They were friends and lovers, as were many of the women Dermott fancied. But he particularly liked Helene's company, and after leaving Emma Compton's, he'd knocked on her door, claiming he'd given up women for good.

Helene had only smiled and said, "Do come in, Dermott. You look like you haven't slept." And over the breakfast she made for him, she heard of his unsuccessful wooing of Isabella at the ball as well as a highly edited account of his unsatisfying night with Mrs. Compton.

She commiserated with him, and when her two-year-old son woke, Dermott played with the young boy and forgot for a time about ladyloves and unrequited passion. Tommy was a great favorite of Dermott's, reminding him of his own son, of happier times, and he always felt a level of comfort at Helene's.

He fell into a lazy domesticity the next few days, going with Helene to the market in the morning, accompanying her to the park with Tommy in the afternoon, helping her rehearse her new part for the play scheduled to open in Covent Garden. He didn't make love to her and she didn't question his mood, aware of his feelings for the woman who'd spurned him at Lady Hertford's ball-even if he wouldn't admit to them.

Dermott didn't drink in the evenings, when in the past he'd always emptied at least two bottles a night. He read instead, which unusual pastime piqued Helene's curiosity about the young lady he'd taken to Richmond. What had this Miss Leslie done to so powerfully change Dermott's profligate ways?

In the meantime, Isabella's schedule continued apace, and she moved from one entertainment to another with willful determination, falling into bed exhausted after dancing all night, invariably dreaming of Dermott, waking up each day to the frustration of finding herself alone in bed. While the men who wooed her with flowers and flattery didn't ignite even the smallest spark of interest.

By the end of the week, she was wishing she could change her mind and chuck it all.

And if it weren't for Molly, she would have.

But Molly was living vicariously in a world she'd seen only from the fringes, and Isabella couldn't think of denying her the pleasure.

Isabella ordered coffee with her breakfast chocolate that morning, intent on recharging her sense of purpose and vanquishing her fatigue. For she faced another grueling day of social activities, beginning with yet another breakfast party, followed by an afternoon musicale with Italian singers at the Duchess of Kendale's.

Late that afternoon, when Dermott walked into the duchess's music room, heads turned and a flurry of whispers spread across the room like a cresting wave. Even the soprano performing a solo paused infinitesimally in the midst of a soaring high note, at which point anyone not aware of his presence immediately turned to look.

He stood at the back of the room, framed by a rococo panel depicting the Shower of Danaë, and more than one guest considered the background highly appropriate for a man of his wealth and profligacy. Isabella found the juxtaposition irritating-as if she needed any reminders of his infamy. But even as she resented his reputation, she experienced a small, wistful yearning that he might have come for her. A feeling she forcibly brushed aside a moment later, reminding herself instead that Dermott Ramsay had no interest in her other than sex And even that was of the most transient nature.